IF you want to take part

As you may have already realised, I have quite a lot of free time at the moment. I am living and working in Spain and that means siesta! Basically, the working day in Spain lasts from about 9 ’til 2 and then continues from 5 until around 9. However, Spanish institutions and public offices all normally close for the day at 2 o’clock. Working in a university means that my working day ends at 2 o’clock everyday. You can read all about the changes that might be forthcoming in Spain in an interesting article I came across this week here.

I don’t know if it is a good or a bad thing but I love to be busy. For the last two years, while I was living at home in Galway my weekly schedule consisted of getting up at 7 everyday, leaving the house by 7:55 and I wouldn’t get home again until 11PM. On the weekends, I worked in a coffee shop as a barista from 7AM until 5 or 6PM. Repeat. Therefore, I didn’t have a lot of down time to chill out. So, as you can imagine arriving in Spain to a job that finished up at 2 everyday and nothing to do on the weekends was quite a transition! I’m not complaining but still, I do like to keep busy. So, that has manifested in me setting myself various challenges (this blog being one of them) to keep myself occupied when I wasn’t eating Spanish tortilla or tasting Galician wine! Some of those challenges were long term, in November I took up learning the piano for the first time and in January and February I took part in two different online courses about Marketing and Branding and I’m in the middle of doing an introduction to coding with Harvard University. I’m not doing any of it for a particular reason, I don’t think I’ll ever get a job as a coder! But I suppose I just like the idea of trying to improve myself as a human and what not!

That brings me to my latest challenge – the 30 day challenge. After taking advice from the wonderfully cheerful Miriam from Bake My Style, I have recently started doing 30 day challenges to keep my mind and body occupied. Miriam recommended a TED talk on her snapchat recently and I was inspired. Here’s a link to the TED talk, it explains the benefits in more detail.

You’ve probably heard about 30 day squat challenges or burpee challenges, well they’re not the type of challenges I’m talking about. According to Matt Cutts, 30 days allows enough time for you to create a habit or stop doing something that you don’t want to do anymore. It also allows you to become more mindful and to take control of your life. So, instead of April flying by without even realising, April 2016 will soon be the month that I hula-hooped everyday for 10 minutes and gave up sugar in my tea for 30 days. I obviously got carried away this month and decided to do two challenges – but you don’t have to! Why not think about trying to do something you’ve always wanted to do for the next 30 days? Look at it this way, if you love it you can do it forever and if you hate it, well now you know! You can keep track by taking note on a chalk board like I do (which is placed in my kitchen both to remind me and motivate me), or just take note of it in a notebook or even on your phone.

I’m going to be keeping ye* updated in the Life section on the blog and I’ll probably snap (imperfectlyfree) about it every now and again.

Please do let me know how you get on, I’d love to hear. As always, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat (imperfectlyfree) or Twitter (I’ve been very active on Twitter since I set it back up, I’m loving it… How wonderful it is that there’s an app that allows me to send my brain-farts out into the stratosphere!).

Winging it,

R x

*ye is what I use as the plural form of you or you all (y’all) – I’m Irish! It’s very common in the West of Ireland and I think it’s best that everyone understands me when I use it because I’ll never stop using it, I love it!